


The Giving Tree

by Moonsheen



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Cat and Mouse, Dendrophilia, Desk Sex, Dubious Consent, M/M, Mutual Exploitation, Politics, Pre-Canon, Sex Pollen, Sex Toys, Subterfuge, Tentacles, Tree Sex, Ulterior Motives, Xeno, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 15:15:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13192815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsheen/pseuds/Moonsheen
Summary: Twenty years before the start of the game, a young rookie cop is asked to bring in a foreign ambassador suspected of bribery and corruption.  His target? One H. Manley Tinderstauf.





	The Giving Tree

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuses for this beyond the fact Discord challenged me to write terrible Manley/Lendel. 
> 
> Well, uh, challenge accepted.

"Honestly," says the sap, clapping his hands together with a firm 'tock!' "I would never DREAM of obstructing your investigation! I understand your position. It’s just a formality."

It was a bit more than formality. The sap was currently under house arrest pending an investigation of his personal finances following a bribery charge, but that didn't stop him from treating the security detail assigned to him by the local precincts like house guests. 

The term ‘house’ in this case was a little loose: Like most saps in the capital, he lived in a walled garden within the city boundaries. Unlike most saps, this one was an ambassador, so he could afford a large pleasure garden in the northern precinct known as the ‘step’ -- occupied mostly by wealthy and powerful astrologists and judges. It wasn’t his primary residence --that was a family grove outside the city, a lush forest on a river-- but that hadn’t stopped him from giving himself all the amenities: bright topiaries, burbling fountains, and modest five bedroom house. ‘For guests,’ he’d explained.

It was enough to make the young constable grit his teeth, but the politics behind arresting an ambassador were tricky, and officially the sap was being detained for his own safety. So, the officer bit the inside of his cheek and saluted smartly. He wondered where his fellows had gone. Four had arrived at the gates, but somehow their numbers dwindled with each turn in the sap’s garden. The ambassador was determined to give the whole tour.

And he had not. Stopped. Talking. Not since he’d led them through the gates.

“Please, if I can be of any assistance, especially if it expedites this whole process, allow me to offer it! I imagine you must be so very bored. You are WASTED on such a trivial task…”

That, the young officer silently agreed, was entirely true. 

“Your safety is important to the Commonwealth,” he said, stiffly. 

“Yes, as you say, it’s OBVIOUSLY a misunderstanding,” said the sap.

Lendel, who hadn’t said anything like that at all to his recollection and was really only the junior officer on this case, just stared. 

“We’ll be here until the investigation is over,” he said. “We’ll need to do a full sweep of the premises.”

“I think you’ll find there is very little to be raked up here,” said H. Manley Tinderstauf. “I do keep my boughs very well watered, and pruned. Did you know, some of these strains are from the Westerly Wood? Hybrids, of course, just some minor shrubbery, think of them a bit like your ‘dogs’ or your ‘cats,’ but fine and very well trained!”   


“...I see,” said Lendel.   


“Are you interested in my underbrush?” smirked the sap, his voice had a sticky quality that made Lendel want to take a bath. Or maybe that was just all the flowers. He had no allergies to speak of, but there was so many of them. The air was thick and sweet.   


“We’ll need to see your offices,” said Lendel. Even that seemed to earn him a crook of Tinderstauf’s polished brow.

“You do get to it, don’t you,” said Tinderstauf. “Of course, my home is your home, so long as we are working together. If you need a roof, my dear officer, I am happy to provide.”

“We’ll need to see your offices,” repeated Lendel, tonelessly. “It’s an authorized check. We just want to make sure everything’s in order.”

He’d also been authorized to take the Tinderstauf ledger if he happened to find it, but the ambassador didn’t need to know about that part of standard procedure.

“You have a tidy mind, don’t you?” asked Tinderstauf.

“I don’t know what means,” said Lendel.

“It means I will cooperate in any possible way I can,” said Tinderstauf, he leaned down as he said it, so his head hovered level with the young officer. He got a full whiff of the sap’s own perfumes. At least that’s what he thought it was. It was even stronger than the flowers, and completely dizzying. “And I mean in absolutely any way.”

“Then take me to your offices,” said Lendel, a little desperately this time. Where did the rest of his unit go? They had come in together. They’d meant to escort Tinderstauf to the house. They’d meant to take him to the offices. They’d meant to-- 

The ambassador put a hand on his shoulder to hold him steady. He hadn’t been sure when he’d started to sway. 

“Oh, my,” whistled Tinderstauf, “and I was just about to show you in!  Do you need a moment?” 

“I… I’m fine!” snapped the officer. He shoved off the sap’s hand and tried to turn it into an awkward salute. “Lead the way!” 

Tinderstauf’s glowing eyes danced with amusement. “As you wish,” he said, and led the way with a flourish of his wrist, up the steps into the house. If Lendel had hoped escaping in doors would spare him the cloying smell of the garden he was deeply mistaken. Tinderstauf had the insides decked out with flower-filled vases.

“Do forgive the mess,” he said, rubbing at some mark on a vase that Lendel could not actually see. “It seems as though yor Commonwealth has detained my household staff. My steward is normally very on his game. Do you know when he will be rejoining us? I would love to order you a drink. I know you humans like to make a production of drinks. I am a fan! You know, I keep a collection of Commonwealth glassware. It’s more rustic than what our brave, brave glassblowers in the Wood manage but it’s so bold.! Are you sure you would not like a drink? I could manage something, I think, even without my dear, dear Yowlson…” 

The steward had actually been sentenced and exiled about two days ago after providing a full confession of his own embezzled funds, claiming the entire time he had acted alone. No one had seen fit to inform the ambassador of that just yet. “I’m not thirsty.”

“No?”   
  
“The offices.” Lendel swallowed. “Now.”

Tinderstauf took him there, up a winding set of stairs that left Lendel more dizzied as he reached the top. He didn’t stop talking the whole way. An observation about this vase. A purring note about some painting on the wall. As they passed a window looking out on the garden, Lendel thought he caught a flash of armor, one of his fellows down below -- but, no, nothing but swaying bushes below. The topiaries, the fountains, the light slanting through the window and catching Tinderstauf’s foliage just so as he produced the key to the office.

“You should know it’s quite private,” said Tinderstauf. “I take no one but my closest associates here, but, as you have asked so nicely, I’m happy to show you everything. Search to your heart’s content and you shall see how upfront I am in all my affairs. All of them.”

“Enough,” said Lendel, who refused to brace himself against the doorframe, even if he wanted very badly to do so just then. He nodded at the shelf on the far wall. “Show me those books.”

Tinderstauf showed him, all the while reminding him of little things like ‘diplomatic immunity’ and ‘dispensations.’ “You do know I’ve already declared my pre-existing literacy before the lower and higher courts in this country, hm? Of course I did. All the Westerly Wood can read, it’s just our culture! But I would never want to make your people uncomfortable -- so I keep all these in the privacy of my own home. Which is, shall I remind you, secured through the consulate, which I’m sure is very happy to have you here to clear all of this up.

“I’m not here on behalf of the consulate,” said Lendel. “What’s in those cabinets?’

Wine, as it turned out.

“Not for me,” said Tinderstauf. “Terrible for the roots, but excellent for guests. Would your superior allow it?”

Lendel’s superiors had warned him of exactly that for entirely different reasons than the ambassador was suggesting, but he kept that to himself.

“I’m not here for  _ tea _ ,” he said, closing the cabinet door with more weight than he intended behind it. He gripped the handle, his knuckles white, but the skin up his arm flushed. “Show me what’s in the desk.”

The ambassador showed him. He showed the officcer his oil lantern -- not needed, with the windows being so high, they let in more than enough light. He showed him his writing implements -- which would’ve been enough to bring him in without the song and the dance, were it not for that blasted diplomatic immunity he kept rambling on about. He showed him the drawers, filled with scrolls -- of all things. Each with a seal marking a different geneology. Each perfectly illegal but perfectly permissible. And, as Lendel bent over, the heat and the sweet scent in the air gave him pause. He sucked in his breath through his teeth, and braced his arm next to one of the sap’s tacky paperweights.

He needn’t have worried. The sap touched his arm to steady him. The ambassador watched him with sideways glance. 

“It seems a shame they should have sent you in all that armor,” he murmured. He moved his hand over the back of the officer’s neck. He rubbed it, making general noises of sympathy. It felt like the polished end of a bannister, but much, much warmer. “They should know well enough I’m hardly prone to violence. It’s a dashing look, and you wear it well, but I hardly think I’m worth the trouble.” 

He wasn’t entirely wrong about the armor, though. Lendel was young, just a year on the force, and fit for it, but, at that exact moment, the full weight of the plate seemed to bear him right down against the surface of the desk.

“Enough,” gasped Lendel, practically shaking. “Tell me what those papers say.”

And so the ambassador told him, reciting one long, mincing letter after the other, while undoing the officer’s breast plate. He recited a basic request for a work visa while vines crawled up the officer’s leg, to cut the straps that wouldn’t loosen easily in that position. He recited an absolutely boring request for a transcription while shoving him up on the desk proper, rolling him onto his back.  He moved onto to an astrologist reading while sliding one of those polished hands under the officer’s tunic, and the vines that had so mercilessly cut the leather straps of his armor busied themselves by twining their way up his leg, around his upper thigh, pulling it back.

“Enough,” snapped Lendel, grabbing a fistfull of the sap’s foliage. He’d had enough of listening to him. He shoved the sap’s head meaningfully. It wasn’t nearly enough to budge him, but it was enough to give him an idea of where he wanted him to be just then. “Shut up. I’m not here for  _ gossip _ .” 

If he’d hoped making the sap blow him would at least quiet him down, he was sorely mistaken. The sap managed to do even that as noisily and wastefully as possible. He drummed his fingers along the officer’s inner thigh. He  _ hummed _ . Oh, when he got to it, it was fine. The inside of his mouth was soft and sticky and, since sap’s didn’t need to breathe, he could take Lendel as deep as he pleased. Lendel would’ve accepted this indignity -- lying with his armor off and his clothes rucked up on this absolutely useless ambassador’s desk -- if he didn’t keep  _ stopping _ .

“Why,” grit out Lendel, the third time the sap broke away with one last lingering lick up his cock. Tinderstauf caught his leg before he could kick him in the head. “What are you doing. What is the meaning of this.”

“I can’t enjoy my work?” purred Tinderstauf. “Now, now, do humans not care whether their partners enjoy themselves? I thought you were all used to this.” 

Saps didn’t breathe, so the warm air he blew out against Lendel’s cock had to have been entirely for show. Lendel tried to kick him again, but one of the sap’s vines wrapped itself around his ankle.

“And besides,” he said, prowling forward with green eyes that gleamed even brighter in the shadows of the office, “I should hate it if you were to finish so soon. Half of the fun of this is I get to  _ watch  _ as I take you to pieces.”

Lendel grasped at his shoulders, and bucked his hips, arching his body against the ambassador’s trunk, leaned over him, rough even under his clothes. If the sap wouldn’t use his mouth for anything useful he’d get  _ something  _ out of this--

More vines shot out, wrapping around his other ankle, his wrist, his neck, and pulled him down against the desk. Lendel  _ snarled _ . Tinderstauf clicked his tongue.

“Or I could just see how many times I can bring you to orgasm before you collapse from dehydration,” said Tinderstauf. He didn’t need his hands to hold the officer down. He reached up, ran it back through his foliage, the tips of his fingers came away covered in a fine pink dust. He ran some of this dust down Lendel’s chest, ending at his cock. He danced his fingers around it as it twitched miserably, still damp with nectar. “How does that sound, mm?”

“Shut up,” roared the officer, who no longer cared where his compatriots were or why he’d even come there to begin with. “Shut up shut up and just do it already!”

Tinderstauf, damn him, pretended he hadn’t even heard. “Yes,” he said, as though talking himself around to the idea, “yes, in fact, I think I shall.” 

Then he shoved his pollen-dusted fingers into Lendel’s open mouth. 

The world became heat. Tinderstauf’s mouth closed around him again. He hummed. Lendel bucked furiously. Then Tinderstauf began to thrum, sound resonating in the cavity of his mouth, through his throat and in fact the entirety of his trunk, a deep pulsing noise that lost its tune with the force of the vibration. He met Lendel’s eyes and, though he didn’t use his mouth to smile, his eyes danced as he pulled back, rested his fingers at the base of his cock, and watched Lendel come in a shocked heap on the desk. He didn’t even have the breath to shout, just went taut and snapped in a spasming heap. The stupid paperweight fell on the floor with a final sort of thud.

“That would be once,” said Tinderstauf. 

The vines loosened around Lendel’s arms and legs. Then, they snaked around his chest and rolled him back onto his stomach. He was lying in his own cum, and didn’t even have the energy to snap at the sheer indignity of it. He could still taste the pollen on his lips, smeared down his face, and even the wood of the desk under him set his skin afire anew.

The ambassador leaned over and caught the tip of his ear between his teeth. 

“I think I’ll aim for four or five,” he said, as the vines levered the officer up onto his knees. “I think that sounds quite nice. I think I would like that very, very much.”

And with little other preamble than that, he snaked one of the vines up Lendel’s leg, leaving a slick line of nectar over his thigh before the vines pulled tight, his hand rested over the back of his neck, and the vine pressed into him. Lendel came again out of sheer surprise. Tinderstauf pulled him into his lap. The chair, it seemed, had been retrieved.

“One and a half,” admonished the sap. “Barely! Show SOME restraint, would you?”

Lendel bit out something especially rude.

“That’s what I intend to do to you,” said Tinderstauf. The vine was still lodged in him, Tinderstauf pulsed it, to make a point, Lendel’s swears cut off into an incoherent groan as leafy tendrils looped up his chest, one catching his nipple at a glance and making him hiss. 

Tinderstauf hadn’t been joking about dehydration. The pollen’s effect seemed to defy the laws of human biology while fully paying tribute to everything about a sap’s biology. No sooner had Lendel come again, vine in his ass and a vine wrapped around his cock, that he could feel himself rousing again not a minute later -- after Tinderstauf deposited him in the chair to go examine the cabinets all over again.

“...Not here for tea,” muttered Lendel again, watching the ambassador browse the wine selection in an annoyance. He’s half hard again, and determined not to stay that way. Since the ambassador was taking his time, he started on himself on his own. Tinderstauf glanced over his shoulder.

“Neither am I, I find the human concept of tea wretched,” he said, and set aside one of the glasses to reveal a secret compartment. It contained several devices hanging from hooks on a velvet backing. They looked like they could be used for interrogation. The ambassador chose a modest one in the left corner and Lendel almost rolled his eyes.

“I can take more than  _ that _ ,” he snapped, and just to prove a point, he sped up the pace of his hand on his cock. Tinderstauf grabbed his wrist. 

“What do you take me for?” he said, pressing the device under his leg, positioning him over it. It turned out it expanded.  It had multiple settings. Tinderstauf refused to let him move his wrist again. Lendel howled. “Do you think our engineers JUST sell you siege engines and mood lamps? The patent on this one alone would have made some fool’s fortune several times over. But instead it was just another twig in  _ my  _ geneology’s nest. How’s that? A little more, hm? Or maybe a bit in THAT direction? And I didn’t say you could do it YOURSELF. I do wonder about this setting, I haven’t had the chance to test it out on someone so, ah, game for it-- oh my, and there you go again. You’re going to make this a very short afternoon, you know.” 

When it was done Tinderstauf picked the next one off the rack. It ended up being a very long afternoon. By the end of it, Lendel lay slumped on the desk, his head resting in his arms. His mouth was too dry to speak, and he was pretty sure he’d drifted in and out of consciousness at least three times that last round. Tinderstauf, for his part, had gone off to change his shirt.

“I would have simply had Yowlson fetch you a robe but it is so hard to find the right help in this day and age. It is up to us to help each other, I think. For example, I will help you by not saying a word of this to your superiors. It would be such a shame for such an able man to fall into disfavor when he has  _ such  _ stamina--”

And Tinderstauf turned away, talking to himself the entire time. When the door was shut, Lendel pulled his head up out of his arms. He reached, with some stiffness in his chafed wrists, for his armor. He turned it over in his near-boneless hands. It took some doing, but he was able to fish the object out of the secret lining on the inside of his breastplate: ...a packet of sealed scrolls, identical to the ones in the ambassador’s drawer. The drawer that was, as it happened, still ajar, though the desk now sat at an odd angle. 

Lendel dropped the bundle of letters in with the rest of the ambassador’s letters. Then he slouched back in the chair. Tinderstauf returned with a fresh shirt for himself and nothing but honeyed condolences for the officer. He even brought a small cup of water. He made Lendel drink it out of his hand. After that, he made Lendel suck on one of his roots. Lendel let him. It suited him fine. At some point while Lendel was on his knees beneath the desk, Tinderstauf used one of his roots to steal one of the keys from Lendel’s abandoned belthook on the floor. That was fine, too.

When Tinderstauf had had his fill, Lendel dressed as best he could. He patched the strap of his armor with a bootlace and returned to the garden. His fellows were stumbling out of the hedge-maze, looking nearly as disheveled as him and no doubt they’d been just as affected by the pollen. None of them would look each other in the eye, but Lendel just smirked.

“We won’t be here for long,” he said.

The next day Lendel’s superior found the proof of the illegal transaction in the ambassador’s study, bearing the governmental symbol Lendel had reported having seen in passing. Tinderstauf denied having ever been so foolish to put something like that to pen and ink. The Westerly Wood denied all involvement. The Commonwealth rescinded his literacy pardon. The ensuing inquiry uncovered multiple counts of bribery, corruption, and general high living. Tinderstauf was exiled within two weeks.

“He deserved it,” said Lendel. His fellows agreed. The man had certainly been guilty, of that there was no doubt, but pinning him down had been such a challenge. How on earth had a junior officer managed where multiple inquisitors had failed?

For his trouble, Lendel got a promotion to head of his unit.    


All in a day’s work.


End file.
